Gromnir

tomb of horrors were the classic sucker punch adveture. a popular module for d&d fans, but am not understanding why. the module is a series of insta-kill traps and monster encounters and it is not as if a clever party has some particular advantage over a foolish party. many groups has gotten through pnp tomb o' horrors with nothing save luck and the liberal use of the PMD approach to dungeon clearing. using summoned critters and/or low-level characters to set-off and/or test traps is effective if crude. the thing is, a computer version o' tomb o' horrors would be almost pointless. oh, so there is sphere of annihilation in that hole? okie dokie, reload. tomb o' horrors, as ridiculous as it were, cannot survive the computer reload. as an aside, our personal fave for the jerk dm/gm is level drain undead... particularly when such undead has access to polymorph. d&d vampires got loads of special weakness, none of which is useful if you do not know you is being attacked by vampires. a polymorphed or disguised vampire is gonna get in amongst your party and after you waste spells protecting against the wrong kinda foe, you sudden realize that you is facing vampires. fun? not really. negative plane protection were effective against vampire level drain, but it had a ridiculous short duration in d&d 2e. death ward were a better option in d20, but a smart vampire who waits til party spells is depleted before attacking is gonna have a field day. and in any event, chances are you only get 1 player protected by death ward before the vampires is turning your party from a very capable 9th level group into the equivalent o' a bunch o' 4th level n00bs. unlike the gotcha monsters such as rust monsters and disenchanters, vampires is a staple. if a dm plays vampires as smart as they is 'posed to be, virtual any level appropriate party is gonna get serious sucker punched by vampires. in a computer game, reload. everybody suddenly gets protected by deathward and has vampire killing weapons at the ready. etc. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

up until mass effect 3, Gromnir purchased bio games contemporaneous with the first patching. this were no criticism of bioware as there were no pc games we would purchase earlier than a first patching. the thing is, we waited a bit over a year to finally play me3 and our anticipation for that game were 'bout the same as we have for da:i. ... a game wherein we play an inquisitor has some unique appeal, for as much as enoch wants to punch riddlemeisters, Gromnir has always wanted to be able to say. "today, i smote heretics and ate apple pie." the fact that heretics is necessarily people and we find most forms o' violence to be barbaric does not change the fact that the idea of smiting with righteous indignation is on our bucket list... am thinking it is the word "smite" more than anything else. after all, when does one get the chance to well and truly smite nowadays? unfortunately, bioware releases has become something we look forward to with the same verve as we does a michael bay film . is not as if we is gonna go to a cineplex and see a transformers or die hard movie on day 1, but if is on tv and it not happen to be conflicting with reruns o' mash or barney miller or a shamwow infomercial, we will take a peek. perhaps. HA! Good Fun!

nobody will ever doppelganger vol. first, am suspecting that nobody would wish to, but second, am not sure how one could do so. if Gromnir attempts to be random like vol, we would string together gibberish and then pretend that it makes sense. "And so he says to me, you want to be a bad guy? and I say Yeah Baby! I want to be bad! I says Churchill space ponies I'm making gravy without the lumps! Ah ha ha ha ha haaaaa!!!!!" -- The Evil Midnight Bomber what Bombs at Midnight the thing is, you can tell that vol ain't trying to be random by design, and there is little fragments o' coherence mixed in with the doggerel that is distinctly vol. some small part o' us questions whether or not vol is an act, but what would be the point? is an enigma. not a particularly compelling enigma, but a mystery nonetheless. HA! Good Fun!

"offer" is exact word we were looking for... obsidian offers to do X if fans contribute Y additional dollars. is nothing mysterious about it, particularly when one looks at the previous stretch goals. it would appear, based on the vague nature o' the final goal that obsidian simply ran outta gas-- they didn't plan ahead for a $4 mil stretch goal, but they sure as heck weren't gonna turn away free money. HA! Good Fun!

we noted already that reality is a bane of fun. am recalling a treatise we read 'bout armoured combat-- duels in full plate. now, don't get us wrong, full plate is great protection a horseback, and perhaps when storming a fixed fortification wherein your foe has gotta stand and fight you, but it ain't really dueling garb. the typical armored combat were looking little different than a couple o' 8 year olds with with buckets on their heads and broom handles for swords... save for the ugly end. the combatants would beat on each other, ineffectually, hoping to concuss their foe or find a weak spot in armour... finding weak spots were made all that much more difficult as the combatants were wearing plate armour. now in spite o' the romanticism 'bout articulated plate armour and how youtube videos show that it is possible to do cartwheels whilst wearing such protection, it were still relative cumbersome. so armour guy 1 and 2 would swing at each other till they got fatigued or somebody inevitably slipped... in point o' fact, wrestling moves became far more important in armoured duels than were swordsmanship. one brave knight would wrestle the other champion o' justice to the ground and then drive a weapon through the prone foe's visor. very romantic. am doubting we see such stuff in pillars. am not a fan o' reality in our fantasy games, but the katana mythology has always irritated us. HA! Good Fun!

have always been a sucker for contradictions. morricone is probable most familiar to folks via the spaghetti westerns. but then you listen to The Mission soundtrack or parts of Once Upon a Time in America and you get whole different perspective. we like the Fist Full of Dollars theme as much as The Mission (well almost) but on a complete different level. modern Movie composers is tough 'cause it seems as if there is only a handful of guys that gets all the work (hyperbole) and as much as we like some o' their work, we actual dislike other scores. would be a complete different movie w/o hans zimmer, but we is complete hit & miss on zimmer. if we take his entire body o' work, we is ambivalent. kinda like jerry goldsmith... hard to believe that the guy who did Patton & Chinatown also did Gremlins 2: The New Batch. really. HA! Good Fun! ps that is not a common rita hayworth image, but most rita is good rita.

very good. give that man a prize. conversely, "I do think having the narrator be a person who really exists in the gameworld can help with immersion, and having it be the player character can be a little too much putting words into the player's mouth." josh and Gromnir disagree on much but we both cringe at the overuse o' "immersion." is fluid, vague, and for all intents and purposes, meaningless. we will return to iwd for a moment. there were no single and identifiable protagonist in iwd. this will, we believe, be handled similarly in pillars-- no defined protagonist. so, by necessity, any narrator that exists as a character, no matter how fleeting or limited, would gets the npc label. that being said, we doubts one would label belhifet, iwd's ultimate antagonist, as being an auxiliary npc. see, npc is a Game term and can apply to any character other than the protagonist, which reduces the definition to meaninglessness... similar to "immersion." the nameless storyteller who, sitting next to a campfire, begins a tale of magic and high adventure is also an npc. 'course, the fallout narrator were not only nameless but faceless. nevertheless, am gonna suggest that the fallout narration worked very well. we will also suggest that exposition is no better when delivered from the mouth/pen/whatever o' an npc as from the protagonist. to have belihifet do narration had value not 'cause it were less "off-putting" than protagonist narration. the revelation that the narrator was indeed the antagonist made it more memorable, but that alone would not constitute quality narration. is also nothing 'bout the belhifet reveal that is essential to a "auxiliary npc" narrator. is our contention that auxiliary npc distinction is without merit, and we not see Inherent additional value 'o using a narrator who is part o' the action as 'posed to merely a conduit for retelling events. am gonna suggest that good game narration is dependent on 2 factors... and only 1 such factor is essential. 1) quality voice acting is tough to argue that voice acting doesn't make a difference when delivering otherwise tedious exposition. ron perlman can deliver lines that would sound ridiculous if Gromnir tried to narrate the same text. morgan freeman can talk about freaking penguins fro 90 minutes and people give him buckets filled with awards. get a good narrator. 2) keep narration to a minimum. as jarr recognized, narration in games is exposition. "show, don't tell." is axiomatic in the writer's craft, but frequently forgotten. narration, as it is meant to, "sum up or skim over (essential) events," represents those important aspects o' story that cannot be told effectively by character actions. if your storyteller is relying on narration to a significant degree, then he is failing at the aforementioned axiom. is not rocket science. HA! Good Fun!

good stuff. am partial to ennio moricone for movie soundtracks/themes we can be a bit cynical at times, but is tough to be complete jaded when you hear something so beautiful. that being said, we thinks that jon brion is one o' the most under-appreciated composers doing movie themes today HA! Good Fun!

the $4 million stretch goal is nothing more than an admission that they were ill-prepared and did not anticipate the need for a $4 million stretch goal. hypothetical conversation: "four million? are you kidding me? i was crossing my fingers that we would reach the one million mark. what do we offer them now?" "how about pets? like a dog or something." "i prefer cats. meow." "justin, shuttup." "how about laser weapons? we already have firearms, so why not do a 'barrier peaks' homage and throw in ray guns at $4 mil?" "ray guns? really? somebody gag justin until we are finished." "well, what is your great idea, smart guy." ... "tell them that we will make a better game." "what? for a stretch goal? what does that even mean, 'make a better game'?" "it doesn't mean anything, that is why it should work as a final stretch goal." "huh?" etc. HA! Good Fun!

addendum: placing the katana at the top o' the sword-chain is a bit like placing the chinchilla at the top o' the animal kingdom food-chain. tiger>polar bear> crocodile> chinchilla? seriously. a short, fat, draw-cut weapon that were useless against armour? am understanding that obsidian is making a game, so reality not need match game content. heck, as you increase realism you invariably decrease fun when dealing with these kinda games, but that being said, am kinda tired o' game developers perpetuating katana myths. the katana deserves a place 'bout equal with fire-hardened pointy stick on the ">" list... and if the stick is long enough, we would probably give the advantage to the stick. HA! Good Fun! that is what we get for posting in wee hours... *sigh* tiger<polar bear<crocodile< chinchilla regardless, the katana were not even a particularly effective weapon in its historical and geographical context, so to place it up against and ahead of superior weapons is what we rail against. HA! Good Fun!

sadly, while the prohibition 'gainst criticism directed at specific, individual game developers may (or may not) have been in existence for a long time, its application is a relatively new phenomenon. as with all board rules, it is applied in an ad hoc fashion that beggars attempts to predict. *shrug* is rules, not laws. ultimately, regardless o' what is stated in posted board rules, obsidian may prohibit or allow as they choose. HA! Good Fun!

Yes and yes. Also, please speak for yourself as per courtesy. where did Gromnir speak for you? we posed questions. though we will admit that courtesy has nothing to do with why we choose not to speak for you. diablo 2? *snort* HA! Good Fun! Is this some kind of forum roleplaying thing for you? 5/10 Somebody obviously doesn't know who Gromnir is. oh, that is typical... have to go through this kinda thing every once in awhile. what actually is deserving a 5/10 is genesis poster's mashing together o' storytelling and narration w/o any seeming concern for context. am gonna assume, for the nonce, that we is speaking only o' narration. given that tenuous starting point, one would suggest that the genesis poster should consider the purpose o' narration in a crpg. is different medium than short story or novel, "A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead." is beautiful, but in a visual medium that also is including music, we doubt such narration is useful. in point o' fact, ps:t taught the developers that long blocks of written text were anathema to gamers, regardless of the quality o' the writting. detective/mystery novels has obvious reasoning using first-person narration, but am not aware that pillars is gonna follow traditional detective route. so, we ask-- in spite o' the genesis poster's seeming reluctance to answer question-- what is the purpose o' narration in a crpg? and don't say, "to tell the story" or some other silly nonsense. every bit o' dialogue and character development (visual and written) as well as music and a dozen other elements is contributing to telling of game story. HA! Good Fun! ps is more amusing when they don't know Gromnir

Yes and yes. Also, please speak for yourself as per courtesy. where did Gromnir speak for you? we posed questions. though we will admit that courtesy has nothing to do with why we choose not to speak for you. diablo 2? *snort* HA! Good Fun!

best game music we ever heard is from the iwd games. jeremey soule were fantastic for iwd, and there weren't no drop-off for iwd2... at least as far as music is concerned. inon zur matched soule, which at the time we would not have thought possible. HA! Good Fun!

is this really the dichotomy you want to present? "auxiliary NPC" v. anything else? and is diablo 2 the kinda benchmark for storytelling you wanna use to illustrate your point? oddly enough, is our opinion that the best narration (not same as storytelling) in a black isle/obsidian game thus far has been iwd. the narrator, vo'd by david ogden steirs, is revealed to be the game's ultimate antagonist. is not even a close competition for best narration in a black isle/obsidian game. HA! Good Fun!

addendum: placing the katana at the top o' the sword-chain is a bit like placing the chinchilla at the top o' the animal kingdom food-chain. tiger>polar bear> crocodile> chinchilla? seriously. a short, fat, draw-cut weapon that were useless against armour? am understanding that obsidian is making a game, so reality not need match game content. heck, as you increase realism you invariably decrease fun when dealing with these kinda games, but that being said, am kinda tired o' game developers perpetuating katana myths. the katana deserves a place 'bout equal with fire-hardened pointy stick on the ">" list... and if the stick is long enough, we would probably give the advantage to the stick. HA! Good Fun!

am not certain we would personally describe lara croft as looking "too perfect"... particularly her earlier incarnations. that being said, the game avatar were clear designed to appeal to the prurient interests of male purchasers o' games. is little different than bikini car washes and similar enterprises. the girls might be the best darn washers o' cars in the whole, wide world, but we find such overt pandering to be insulting. we tend to be less intrigued by such endeavors rather than more. HA! Good Fun! ps we do not envy your world if you see every sarcastic comment as an attack.

No Gromnir I'm not attacking you I am just not 100% sure I understand your point we didn't think you were attacking, but we thought sarcasm were possible. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/pander now, given the game avatar in tomb raider looks like... https://www.google.com/search?q=lara+croft&rlz=1C1KMZB_enUS560US560&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=GAlOU4LfBZKryAS7jIKoCg&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=979 we suspect that bruce should recognize what we considers unnecessary pandering... or not. am trying with breadcrumbs... really big and obvious breadcrumbs. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

... am gonna do a sarcasm check first. is possible you is being sardonic and Gromnir is missing. HA! Good Fun!

is odd, but we have never played a tomb raider game. am thinking the avatar turned us off 'cause it seemed too ridiculous... unnecessary pandering. am gonna concede the inherent hypocrisy as we did play games with "comic book type badass" toons who, male or female, were drawn no less provocative or silly. am actually not certain why superheroes is ok for us, but final fantasy Giant swords, lineage 2 warrior girls in stiletto heels, and lara croft b00b avatar sets our teeth on edge. that being said, is not as if we is ok with all superhero stuff-- is still a fuzzy line which we has difficulty crossing. odd. HA! Good Fun!

Yes, I've always found that BG1 drags on a bit through the Cloakwood portion, especially if you spend the time to clear some of the optional wilderness areas. The last time I replayed it, I really rushed to the City as quickly as I could, which helped-- I could space out the "compulsively mowing the fog-of-war off this unimportant wilderness map" so that it isn't all concentrated at the start of the game. I've done some mucking about in CK2 lately, but it's fairly half-hearted. Gaming time is tough to come by with an infant in the house, and CK2 really requires some longer-attention-span playtimes to really get those satisfying "3-generation plan that finally comes together" moments. I'm considering grabbing M&M X to scratch the Old-Skool CRPG itch I'm starting to feel in my fingers. (M&M I was the very first CRPG I played.) Pushed through the Cloakwood bit. Ugh, the mines are just boring in my opinion... Navigating tight corridors in that engine is just not... fun. But but, now I'm inside Baldur's Gate. Feels fresh, can barely remember anything at all from this point on. back when bio were developing bg2, one of the developers confided to Gromnir via email that the only way he could play bg were to do a lightning run up to the cloakwood conclusion. the game effectively started for him when he entered the city of baldur's gate. given how much grief bio got regarding the mindless mowing o' wilderness maps in bg1, am thinking the developers mighta' been a tad surprised by how much grief they got after the release of bg2-- many posters were angry 'cause wilderness maps were gone. am thinking it were a valuable lesson... albeit a perplexing lesson. HA! Good Fun!

Then by all means help me gain some perspective by explaining it to me. What you write here doesn't give me much to go on aside from you disagree with me, which would hardly be the first time. So I imagine there's more to it than that. Ideally, if I may, I'd prefer you give your response in prose because I find the character provides an unnecessary layer of obfuscation that wouldn't be necessary and would increase the likelihood of me missing your point. I don't know in the 15(?) years I've seen Gromnir post that I've ever seen him post out of character. If I did I purged it from my mind so I could only remember the in-character posts. That's why you do History of the World Part 1 jokes instead... actually, we has posted w/o Gromnir voice a handful o' times on these and the bio boards-- maybe 5 times total. am not thinking that a reply to alan necessitates such a rare break with tradition. am certain that alan understood our post perfectly well, so the comment about "obfuscation" is, at best, misplaced. am agreeing we were not specific, but there were nothing 'bout our posting style that made our implication confusing to him. furthermore, as alan now has the mantle o' "bioware employee" Gromnir must needs always be careful. the obsidian boards has a prohibition related to perceived attacks on the employees o' developers from other companies. is a silly rule when applied to an employee that posts in this place, but so many rules is a bit silly. HA! Good Fun! ps experience tells us that the threshold for what constitutes an "attack" is at least as vague as alan found our earlier post to be.

is like watching a car wreck. maybe not always, but sometimes you can't prevent self from taking a peek. the morbid curiosity that leads folks to glance at car/train/plane wrecks is no different than the urge to peek at a vol post. sure, you is slightly embarrassed by the knowledge that some part o' you is wanting to see a bloodied driver or perhaps even a decapitated limb, but you look nevertheless. at best you see nothing and drive away with only your dignity besmirched in some small way. the alternative is what we get above... some kinda nightmarish scene that can traumatize children and makes weak of constitution faint. "oh, what a world--what a world." HA! Good Fun!

actually, we has noticed that alan frequent is the one who misses the point. he gets focused on his (or bioware's) agenda, and complete misses the issue at hand. is tiresome how dogged he can be barking up the wrong tree. that being said, rape, in which victim ain't viewed as a victim, were already inserted into a bio game and virtual nobody cared. the drow companion from bg2 regales you with events o' her time after bg1 and it includes angry villagers and very strong implication o' rape. truth-to-tell, we thinks bioware's handling o' viconia's victimization were far better than much o' their attempts to be Vanguards for social justice insofar as non-traditional sexual pairings is concerned. too often bioware's efforts appear forced or silly when they don their Heroes of Justice cape. that being said, bio's traditional romances is also seeming silly... if a bit less forced. tangential and optional sidequests is dead-ends that can only be improved some small degree. bio romances will always be seeming rushed and puerile to many o' the more adult purchasers o' bio games. *shrug* biowarians make games. they read boards and know their fans. am understanding that some o' the biowarians feel like they gots something important to say, and it must be a great temptation to such progressive biowarians to use their commercial product that gives them access to millions o' people to present their agenda. is not a noteworthy fact, but Gromnir is a minority. big deal. who cares? we bring up 'cause we gots friends and family that is like bioware. every freaking conversation about anything invariably finds its way back to how the government has been giving "us" the fuzzy end of the lollipop for hundreds of years. talk o' taxes is becoming illustrative o' how government hates us. annoying, but understandable. the thing is we can discuss movies, or food or games and frequent we is still gonna end up having somebody wanting to raise spectre o' bigotry and prejudice. is... tedious. the biowarians can become similarly tedious, albeit to a lesser degree. fortunately, most of bioware's clumsy attempts to promote social change is limited. we get our eye-roll moment and little else. if biowarians can feels better about themselves as they champion a righteous social cause, so be it. such efforts don't make their games better or worse (for the most part) and it no doubt gives the social heroes a warm-and-fuzzy feeling when they sees nerdling crusades and internet magazine articles that quote their in-game efforts. is cute and largely harmless. HA! Good Fun!

is always funny to listen to when folks thinks _____________ "jumped the shark." sure, some actors, movies, athletes, whatever got clear moments of fail followed by inevitable plummets into forgotenhood, but those Mel Gibson moments is rare. did indiana jones plummet into suckage when spielberg hired kate capshaw, or were it more complicated... or did third movie make up for the second? as for bio's art direction... *chuckle* virtual every bio game release has had some folks enraged by art direction. bg2 portraits caused major board rage when first seen. all pastels.... and original minsc did look... bad, on multiple levels. wanna know why bg2 portraits got all those weird scars and piercings? is 'cause bio fans wanted portraits to be more "dark and edgy." serious. bio obliged. scars and piercings = dark and edgy. we thought the re-released bio portraits were a joke on fans who had asked for darkness and edge, but biofan loved the new versions. wanna talk "fan service"? (had to look-up "fan service" btw... silly anime terminology.) aribeth's boob cut-out o' in her plate armour caused more nerd rage than anything we saw from folks regarding mass effect games. the elvish paladin o' tyr were in armour that defied gravity and had questionable protective qualities. http://kclose3.com/pelovish.com/wallpapers/jpgs/Neverwinter%20Aribeth.jpg nevertheless, aribeth were the poster child for bioware's next big franchise, and she were clearly meant to titillate the fancy o' the unwashed mass o' bioware fans. *shrug* am thinking it is more fun to listen to the arguments than it is to participate. HA! Good Fun!